A change in posture for associations: embracing cooperation

Testimonies : Setting up a one-day training course on network facilitation for local associations.

Why CoopLoc ?

After the training course CoopTic, we were asked to explain to some fifteen facilitators what we had learnt, in what was called a "scaling-down phase". Inhabitants from Lozère, with a dense associative fabric, wanted us to share our experiences with the local associations. We often heard: we always find the same people attending the different associations, people don't participate,…so, how can we encourage participation? How can we provide paid people or volunteers with a tool to optimise the way they facilitate these association networks?

Formalising the project

At first we were wondering what the duration of the training should be, the number of participants, the content of the course: we wanted to deal with so many things we had heard and experiences in Cooptic.
At the Moustic Meeting, we signed up for a workshop on the Project accelerator method. After forty-five minutes at last we had found the answers to our questions: "Conceiving a 6-hour training tool for 15 people with three objectives: living an irreversible cooperation experience, discovering collaborative tools and formulating a change in posture to facilitate participation of a network or association's members".
Thanks to this method, around ten people cleared the way and opened action tips to us.

What tools for organisation tasks ?

The tools used depended on the tasks to be done:

a wiki: where we created a section called Organisation (pedagogical plan, questionnaire), a section on Training (a page for participants where everyone could introduce themselves, a page for the day's tempo, a picnic page to organise a collaborative picnic) a section on Resources (links to networks and facilitator training resources, sites, articles, tools and a bibliography)

a file shared on Google Drive: a form for the registration of participants, for the report sent one week later; a text file to write an email between two people to then send it to the participants; a text file to write the press review article after the training course where all participants could contribute;

a Pad: for collaborative writing during the day of training;

a freeplane: one for a summarised introduction to the session, with Internet links; and another one that was completed on-site, at the end of the session, to explain the remarks made by the trainees;

a Doodle: to organise a picnic, which was sent to each participant to foster a bit of sharing

a Dropbox: to save final documents (the final email on pdf, the freeplane, the attendance sheet, the chart for the barcamp).

Pooling resources on the platform CoopTic during our own training allowed us to recover some parts of the course, (especially the course by Jean-Michel Cornu on Cooperation in 28 keywords)

On site, we were asked to fill in an on-line chart with the associations everyone knew, giving an email address or a physical address to increase our outreach.

Using these tools allowed us to reduce the number of meetings, and we were able to work on on-line documents, at a distance, between several people (to improve their contents) and to get the trainees involved in the training right from the start, as well as along the way.

Art students creating a wiki book

Testimonies : Stéphan Barron set up a collaborative space for his art students. This space is a wiki. He is a teacher and researcher at the Paul-Valéry University, Montpellier III.

Why do this?

for a space to submit papers and homework,

for a space to find information, create, and share documents ...

for collective creation of contents

for a space for information on pedagogy, professional careers, exhibitions…

How can we conceive the courses?

This is the logical continuation to my teaching methods, which have always been open and participatory. It is a way of teaching that is half-way between the one used in fine-arts and the one used at universities. I hate traditional teaching methods at universities; I find them absurd and grotesque: doctors who have written a thesis on a highly-specialised topic, as an extension to their studies, under the umbrella of such or such professors, force their students to learn words that are set in stone and to repeat them like wise apes. What I am interested in is learning to learn, discovering, knowing and improving…that is the real sense of teaching for me. There is a text on this in the wiki below http://archive-driver.ru/

How do students relate to this?

Of course there is a different relationship that is less hierarchical and frontal, more distributed. Even classrooms must be different: forming a circle and not a pyramid. I am with the students and I am there to share and learn also. I do not have the absolute truth, knowledge changes constantly and everyone knows something they can contribute to the group and to me. It's not demagogy, it's true. Each generation of students know something new (techniques, or books). An example of this is the video-art wiki: we talk all together and if a student has something new and interesting to share, it is posted on the wiki…

The difficulties and barriers to avoid

There are technical difficulties. Sometimes students delete key functions, like a student who placed his file in the page for research and blocked this function for a whole year until we finally understood what had happened. Some student profiles were blocked on the tool, but it's a broader problem all together. Others simply just don't understand why we are using it and are simply not motivated and lazy. They prefer sitting at their desk and listen to words, just because they're lazy

1. Preceding survey

The first step in the conception of a training session is to carry out a survey on future participants and their needs in training.
Exchanging with the sponsor is important to determine the demand of this latter (conditions of contract or call for tenders) and identify the true training needs.

Knowing the audience

Questions that must be addressed :
Who are they ? What are their jobs and how are they evolving, Do they have experience ? Have they got an initial training ? How is the project of training session going to be presented to them ? What do they need to know ? What are the favourable conditions for their training ?...

Identifying the needs in training

First quality criteria of a training session : it must fit the participants needs.
In this context, the need is specified as a gap between noticed and expected skills.

What is the meaning of "skills" ?
It is the knowledge of how to act resulting from mobilization and an efficient use of all internal and external resources in a professional environment.

analysis of the professional environment evolution (what will be the future professional environment of the trainee ?) ...

Identifying the environment

Where does the training session project come from ? What makes it a stake coming within the competence of training ? Why now ? Which means and resources are already available ? What are the drawbacks ? What may be the consequences of training on trainees environment ? (which impact will the training have on the trainees environment ?)...

Choosing a rallying dea

To give birth and support the interest on the project, it is useful to crystallize expectations on a main idea, a meaningful theme which accompany the project all along its evolution. This idea will often be the guiding principle along the conception.

2. Analysis of information

It's about being in proposal forces by translating the identified training needs into training objectives, available in conveyable content (knowledge) and in means to do it (methods).

Choice of objectives

To start the conception of a training session correctly, one must be sure to have a sharp and correctly stated training objective.

The objective is important because it is :

a contract: towards trainees, towards the sponsor.

a safeguard: against a great quantity of information. Thecriteria is simple : why saying or doing this will help people to achieve their goal ?

To start with, the major objectives of the training session must be clarified (session). They can be formulated with the sentence : "When the session is over, the trainee must be able to ... "
Afterwards, this objective must be divided into sub-objectives linkable to the different sequences of the session... (three domains must be covered : knowledge, know-how, manners).
The last stage is about hierarchizing these sub-objectives, specifying those which maybe deleted if time is short.

useful to know :
Objectives are expressed in verbs.
The SMART diagram enables to check quickly the quality of objectives. A good objective is :

Specific

Measurable

reachable

Realistic

Temporally defined

Choice of content

From objectives, content and sequences get more precise. Knowledge have to be worked out : concepts, information, examples, activities...
All the things needed by the trainee to get the pointed out skills.

Methods

Knowing how to choose educational methods means to know how to be educational.
The method defines the transmission mode for the trainer and the acquisition mode for the trainee. There are 4 great educational methods:

Advantages and drawbacks of the different educational methods

Evaluation indicators

The last point of educational analysis of information. It's about pointing out criteria which allows to say that a goal is reached.
It's a teadous work but it's important to start it as soon as the training session is designed.

3. Design of the training session's framework

When the step of gathering all the information is over, the educational itinerary has to be studied. The main question of this stage is : how do we reach the goal of this training session ?

Considering the initial level of audiences :

it can be either done in one sequence but it's rarely the case,

or the progression can be divided in several intermediate stages (sequences, modules...)

Division into sequences

The division into sequences more often found in the conception of short training sessions (1 to 3 days). In longer sessions, these intermediate stages are rather called modules.
An intermediate objective called "educational objective" matches each stage (sequence or module).

How to proceed?
A "sequencing diagram " can be used to realize the educational study
for example :

sequence/module (name/ code)

objective

contents

technics

technics

length

M : 1

objective

know the concepts linked to cooperation

course 12 facets of cooperation

report

3 h

M : 2

M : 3

Framework or educational thread

The framework is an organisation of sequences over time. It allows a global vision over the training but is also a mean to adapt the sequences progress to external constraints (holidays, bank holidays, events specific to the trainees environment) or to daily rythms in short training sessions.

I've become a fan of the project accelerator

Card's author : Laurent Tézenas - Montpellier SupAgro

Card's type of licence :
Creative Commons BY-SA

Testimonies : I am a teacher at SupAgro Montpellier, in the department of Engineering, and I also teach on one-year diploma courses and professional masters. In the field of written and oral communication, work is done individually or in a group.
Whatever the type of work to be done, students must show their ability to mobilise their network to think of solutions, solve problems and overcome obstacles. Working alone does not exclude trusting others, giving them the opportunity of showing their availability and interest in our work. It is in this context that a project accelerator becomes operational.
A project accelerator isn't a software programme or IT tool; it is a method to limit exchanges between five people. This exercise lasts 60 minutes. One person explains a problem for the group to solve. The group will take 30 minutes to think about it and the person that explained the problem will not intervene.
I used this exercise with second-year engineers. Returning from a work traineeship, a debriefing in October gave the engineers the opportunity to talk about the roles, missions and activities they had to carry out during this traineeship, and then they had to remember the skills they had used. Then they had to form groups of 5 to share their experiences and also the difficulties they encountered. Each group then decided to choose a problem or difficulty they encountered and to apply the "project accelerator" method to it.
The students really appreciated this moment, since it was a structured time for exchange. The method allows everyone participate, even those who are shy, and it stops the person who asked the question from constantly re-focusing the problem since he or she does not participate in this collective thinking process. At the end of the exercise, students must pick a learning linked to the session, a small grain of sand. Some comments in this sense were: "it's really good that the person says no more after explaining the problem"; "developing the ability to listen really contributes to the thinking process".

Internet has created an inter-generational abyss

Ideas developped by the author in the field of cooperation within the book or conference :

What a lot of changes in just one century!

Around 1900

Around 2000

In France, most humans are farmers

In France, less than1 % of humans are farmers

There are 2 billion people on Earth

There are 7 billion people on Earth

The average life expectancy is 30 years

The average life expectancy is 80 years

People live in their communities, with a similar culture

People live in a group with a mix of religions, cultures, languages, nationalities

+/- 5,000 new words enter into the dictionary every 20 years

+/- 35,000 new words enter into the dictionary every 20 years

The cultural horizon is limited to a couple of thousand years (1,000 BC)

The cultural horizon goes back until the Planck barrier (just some milliseconds after the Big Bang

Moreover, in western Europe, people under the age of 60:

have never experienced hunger (real hunger)

have never experienced a war

have never experienced real pain thanks to medicine

An abyss between today's generation and the preceding one!

We are little aware of the huge gap that has grown between today's generation and the preceding one. There has been a change in paradigm and this is largely so thanks to the arrival of the Internet!

Today's generation is extremely different to the preceding one:

they live with an abundance of information available everywhere and at all times

they are hyper-connected with the whole world

They no longer have the same brain:

they no longer retain information in the same way (they have outsourced this in a large proportion)

they no longer read in the same way

they are multi-tasking

They no longer have the same space

they live in a virtual world where distances no longer exist

they have access to all places and all people thanks to ICTs

They no longer live in the same world

they live in groups that combine several different religions, languages, nationalities, morals…

they are not concerned by morals that they do not need (was was the case in the times of war, suffering and shortages…)

With the invention of the Internet and ICTs (Information and communication technologies) today's generations have externalised their memory, their imagination and their reasoning (from now on, accessible on the Internet with an effectiveness never seen before in our brains). This has freed “space in the brain” for inventiveness (the only real intellectual activity today, according to the author). Indeed, it is by getting some distance from knowledge and know-how that one can really think and invent!

This upheaval in the world forces new generations to reinvent everything, or almost everything, since the old “framework” we had placed our society in can no longer cope with the surge of the Internet.
This is more valuable than ever in teaching.

For a re-definition of teaching!

Before, teaching was an offer that was to be grasped as it was! Knowledge was passed by the voice of the teacher who would read written texts. In the auditorium, the teacher was the centre and reigned over the “learners”. To spread knowledge he asked for silence.

Today, knowledge is available everywhere and at all times. Students no longer remain “silent” because the teacher's words sound redundant if all he or she does is “read out” knowledge that is readily available elsewhere.
Students want to play an active role in their learning process (as when they “guide” their computers). Taking them out of this and trying to turn them into a “passive” mass no longer works!

The future of education will entail a full revision of the teacher's role and of school structures. Courses that are not “turbulent” will be those where the teacher created the necessary conditions for co-building knowledge and where he or she will find support in knowledge that is readily available to invent with the learners. MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are an example of this.

Short introduction of the book's author : Michel Serres is a professor at Stanford University and a member of the Académie française. He is the author of many philosophical and history of science essays, the most recent of which, “The Times of Crisis” and “Music” have been greatly acclaimed in the press. He is one of the few contemporary philosophers who portrays a vision of the world that links sciences to culture
.

Quotations : With the explosion of new technologies, a new human being is born: Michel Serres calls it “Thumbelina” in a nod to the skill with which messages fly from their thumbs.

Made in Europe: CoopTic in Catalonia

Card's author : Jordi Picart i Barrot - Aposta sccl

Card's type of licence :
Creative Commons BY-SA

Testimonies :

Once upon a time

The CoopTic project arrived at our door in a rather informal way, as is often the case with these types of ideas, and provided an indication of an approach that places less emphasis on formal structures than on people networks: someone who knew someone had spoken about us and had proposed us getting involved. It was an opportunity, they told us, to explore new ways to design training and training tools.
Our school has always been characterised by its desire to ensure all training fits in with the principles of the cooperative movement that defines our own raison d'être, and this has traditionally obliged it to be very innovative in terms of its methodologies. Consequently, any opportunity to incorporate new perspectives is welcome and so at the time we hesitated very little over our participation in the project.
The initial working meetings, which alternated between telephone conferences between various parties, videoconferences, and a face to face meeting, immediately led us to understand that we were dealing with a much more ambitious idea than a simple exchange of methodologies; even so, this continued to be the interest of our organisation in the project.

The real meaning of the project

Regarding the direction the project took once up and running, there is little we need to add to all the information contained in the book you have in your hands; a quick glance at the index, however, can confirm various important concepts for you:

A proposal for a personal development journey

The project is based on a solid amount of intellectual material. In proposing that people obtain a ticket for CoopTic, we are suggesting to them a journey of personal development directed towards concepts linked with the common good, with sharing, with collective production. This goes beyond the simple strategy of exploring new tools to improve the projects that each is working on: it consists of exploring new attitudes and alternative states of mind. Not in an explicit way but undoubtedly involving epistemological change.

A truly meaningful learning process

The value of a meaningful learning process applies to everyone: offering the student an environment that allows him to experience what he has learnt and immediately incorporate it based on this experience. It's common to offer this type of environment; CoopTic however, doesn't build simulations but fills with meaning the use of the tools with a concrete goal, which reinforces the acquired concepts and adds more meaning to the methodologies, so they feed into each other in a really powerful, efficient way.

A network that creates networks

It is set out in the objectives of the project, and is therefore no secret to anyone: CoopTic is pursuing the creation of a European network of network facilitators; a suite of levels that contains within it a knowledge transfer process designed to act like an oil stain: from the promoting organisations to the members, and from these to their target public…and from here to the wider geographic environment.
And this, in a much closer working environment with closer relationships than would be the case with organisations that are not formal and associated, but is not the case with a project like the European Leonardo da Vinci project that is laid out to the millimetre. The CoopTic network manages to achieve involvement, co-participation, collective construction, inter-cooperation…

The fundamental challenge

All the training process that took place in 2012 was undertaken in French, even though it was geographically spread out, with the inspiration of the promoting organisations. Transmitting such complex (intangible) elements to a different reality, in a different language, became the major challenge.
It wasn't about translating materials and content; on the other hand, it wasn't possible to count on the direct expertise of the principal creators of the course. It would have been surreal to provide an important number of training hours with simultaneous translation, and a simple conference of one of two hours didn't justify the movement of the experts from neighbouring France.
On the other hand, our school has a well-defined target group and it was necessary to make an effort to adapt and include the whole group: the explicit and implicit objectives, the content and its orientation, and the methodologies. Even scheduling the calendar was unviable: if three three-day meetings had taken place in isolated locations to foster creativity and the cohesion of a strong group dynamic, with the possible Catalan users it was illusory to replicate such a scheme.

The options for adaptation involved:

Revisiting the contents in light of the social economy

The Catalan participants in the training programme came from organisations providing support to people, from cooperatives, from civic collectives…. Their needs are in keeping with a reality noticeably different from the original. This factor was the simplest to resolve, although though most arduous: a thorough analysis of the content of the training programme, a rethinking of the weight that each and every person had in the programme as a whole and the inclusion of specific modules to connect the original content with that of social economy.

Looking within the participants

The formulation of the title can seem pretentious, however the work on the core topics, linked with the personal attitudes in relation to the collaborative work and the common good, was the main victim of the fact that the people who inspired the core of the training proposal were not able to travel.
Yes, their texts were available; and someone translated them. However, what was effective was providing many opportunities for group reflection and exchanges; in other words, proposing to the participants that, based on the available texts and following a structured work schedule, they produce this knowledge autonomously.

Putting forward methodologies to strengthen the group and facilitate the creation of networks

It was necessary to compensate for the loss of opportunities to do things together (the course in Catalonia consisted of three days separated by a month in between each, with distance learning modules in between) with an extra focus on the collaborative activities, on opportunities for informal interaction, on getting to know each other.
Wherever possible, the analysis component of the work projects was undertaken taking into account the realities and basic difficulties of each of the participants.
Everyone was encouraged to contribute imaginative solutions to the difficulties of others.
Everyone was encouraged to be receptive, to listen to what others proposed regarding his or her problem.
Essentially, the aim was for the bonds of familiarity to strengthen at a rapid rate so that relationships would remain after the end of the course.

The participants evaluate the training

Once the course is finished, and at the time when a second course is being planned, various reviews are done in light of their personal evaluations:

The majority explicitly mention the adaptation components that we have just listed; consequently, these components have been present and noticeable in the course. And, it's important to say, the evaluation that is made of them is also very favourable.

Participation in a course with these characteristics represents an effort and dedication, however they state overwhelmingly that they would like even more sessions or, as a minimum, the realisation of some short one-off event that complements and widens the concepts.

The opportunities to maintain the links of collaboration between the participants have already occurred and, therefore, the participant from one entity has invited that of another to deliver a training session for his colleagues.

Last but not least, there is an intangible benefit that also gives an idea of the extent of the impact: Aposta is receiving requests, isolated but sufficient in number, to believe that there exists an interest in becoming familiar with the proposed training scheme and testing out ways to implement it with the cooperatives and entities within the Catalan social economy and tertiary sector.
And this cannot be considered a success; it is, simply, the clearest proof that we have a good idea on our hands, structured in a coherent way and oriented towards offering new and little used ways to those organisations that, seeking social change, need appropriate models.

Introduction : The moving discussion (still called the Positioning game) is a dynamic form of discussion that promotes participation.

A facilitator tells a story that is purposefully controversial. At some key moments in the story, he invites several participants to move to a certain spot within the room, "those who don't agree with what has just been said go to one side, those who agree, go to the opposite side".

Nobody can stay in the middle (without a reason), moving in the room really pushes participants to take a side and to provide reasons.

Once everyone has chosen "their side", the facilitator then asks who would like to take the floor to explain their position.

To start the discussion, he may start by asking who has a strong view regarding what was just said.

When one side has given their reasons, it's the turn of the other side to express its reasons. It is like a game of ping-pong. If one of the participants decides that a reason given by the other side is valid, he or she may change sides.

When the facilitator decides, the discussion ends and the story continues until the next controversial statement or situation arises, when the discussion starts again.

Requirements :

A minimum number of participants (around ten).

A controversial story where participants can feel represented.

A spacious room.

Posters to mark-off the different areas (agree, disagree).

Explaining the rules of the game (nobody is forced to speak, but they must all choose a side).

Activity duration: 1:30h seems a reasonable duration.

Some practical uses :

Breaking the ice quickly between participants, having to take a side quickly becomes a game and contributes to participation.

Promoting the participation of the largest number of people, if the facilitator encourages those who have not yet spoken to take the floor.

Clarifying everyone's position; showing the diversity of opinions in one another.

Using the tools :An example of a moving discussion organised by SCOP Le Pavé

Going further :

It is possible to write down the reasons as they arise in the discussion and map them.

It is possible to give each side 5 minutes or more to fine-tune their reasons collectively.

Advantages :

The activity does not require any materials.

It is set-up quickly.

Can be done outdoors to give participants fresh air.

With this format, discussions become a moment of pleasure.

Drawbacks :

It is not certain that the discussion will actually "flow".

Some participants who do not feel comfortable in a group or with the logic of reasons may feel excluded; this form of discussion should be complemented with other forms depending on available time, number of participants and goals.

Prezi

Card's author : Outils-Réseaux et SupAgro Florac

Card's type of licence :
Creative Commons BY-SA

To begin with : Prezi is an online presentation software. Its peculiarity, compared with classical presentation software such as Impress or Powerpoint, is that the presentation is not linear. The whole of the presentation is on only one space, you reach information by zooming in or zooming out.

The moving discussion - practical case

Card's author : Gatien Bataille

Card's type of licence :
Creative Commons BY-SA

Testimonies :

Methodology

Goal

The goal is to present a set of situations to participants and offer two working hypotheses relating to the situations presented. Participants will have to choose one of the hypotheses and argue their choice to convince others to join them.

Rules

1. the facilitator presents a situation

2. He/she suggests two hypotheses to the group relating to the situation he or she has presented

3. He/she asks the group to choose one and move to their right if they choose one hypothesis and to move to their left if they chose the second hypothesis.

4. each group must provide reasons for their choice to try an convince the other group to join them in their choice.

5. When the groups have been "stabilised", the facilitator explains the next situation and the whole process starts again.

A facilitator of a moving discussion should

1. write down 5 or 6 situations and two clear and opposing hypotheses for each of the situations for the group to choose from.

2. introduce the situations as clearly and concisely as possible.

3. ensure that the discussion doesn't turn into a squabble and allow that there is a balanced explanation of reasons.

4. move on to the next situation once the groups have been "stabilised".

An example of a moving discussion during a training course

Situation 1The councillor suggests creating a body of participation and consultation with the population in your town for environmental issues. The construction of a wind farm seems a good topic for him, plus it is a topic of today!
He comes up with a budget (not huge but sufficient) to create this participation body. You have several weeks to organise a first session (this leaves you time to organise it without too much of a hurry).

You agree to the idea without hesitation, a great idea! At last you will be able to create the participation body you had been dreaming of

You have some doubts as to whether it is a good idea and the right time to do it

Situation 2After taking up the idea suggested by the local councillor, you announce the first participatory meeting wide and large. However, you are not that enthusiastic. Normally, around 10-15 people go to these meetings, 30 at the most…
You are nicely surprised when, on the evening of the meeting, you see more than 100 people arriving. You have to quickly go and find extra chairs, but there is room for everyone.
The meeting facilitator is a little overwhelmed.

You forget about going around the table, since there are far too many people there…We will decide how to collect the participant's information later on

You go around the table, "adapting" the round slightly because you don't want to eat up too much time from the agenda

Situation 3Despite the number of people there and the exchanges, you manage to draft fairly complete minutes of the meeting. Then you distribute them to the people who left their contact information at the meeting.
Others who were not able to be at the meeting ask you for a copy of the minutes.

You send them a copy for their information

You send them a copy and invite them to make contributions and comments

Situation 4After some sessions, the group becomes considerably smaller: at least a third of those who registered no longer reacts to the emails and does not go to the meetings. You try re-launching the meetings by email asking people to become involved but without much success.

After two more emails without reply, you decide to stop sending the minutes "for nothing" to those who have not replied to your last 5 emails

You say to yourself that there's no harm in sending it to all, and keep all of them on your mailing list

Situation 5Facilitation takes time. Your local councillor is satisfied with your work but asks you to participate in a call to contributions to raise some money. This would be a nice contribution to the communal budget and would allow your post as the network facilitator to continue a little longer.

You find several funding possibilities here and there, some of which are in line with the network's dynamics. You start preparing all the required documentation…you need the money!

You fear changing the group's dynamic. You ask your local councillor for time to consider other funding options.

Situation 6The network has gradually created a structure. With not much it has achieved quite a lot. These achievements make you proud and have contributed to making you visible in the region. But then all of a sudden you hear that some network members who are also members of other close networks are telling of your network's achievements.

You are not very pleased with this situation and decide to tackle the issue frankly at the next meeting

You are pleased with this and hope this exchange will also happen in the opposite sense

Situation 7Your councillor is generous. He has decided to give you a grant for a communications tool that is ready to use and is ideal for managing the network. It has it all; it is the latest on the market! This will allow you to centralise your data and make the network more "professional".

Great, at last the tool is complete! This will considerably change the working habits and could bring those who are less technologically aware onboard. What a great step forwards for the organisation!

You thank the councillor for the grant. You promise to take a look at it all and to discuss it with the network to decide whether it is adopted (or not)

The rules of an educator

Description : Here we mention some principles that should be taken into account when building a training action.

How do we learn?

Learning a new skill is done through a progression of four stages:

A person can start the learning mechanisms by noticing something is lacking.

In a learning situation, this thread can correspond to the activities suggested:

an activity that destabilises or questions something (conscious lack of skills),

followed by a stabilising activity that contributes the necessary knowledge and know-how (conscious skill)

an activity that has an application (when faced with an unconscious skill)

10 rules for adult learning

Adults are not children. They do not obey a parent or teacher.

Adults are not here to have fun. They are responsible and request what is recognised in them, this sense of responsibility.

Adults possess a human, family, social and professional experience that teachers should use as a support.

Adults work in a team, even if sometimes they also need to work alone.

Adults always combine theory with practice when learning.

Adults have a very good understanding of the logics of symbolic exchange: give-receive-provide. They will make more of an effort when they feel that the teacher is not sparing any time or energy; they will not hesitate to share their specific knowledge with others.

Adults need spaces to share with others and time to assimilate.

Adults always study the interest of their time for training.

Adults possess knowledge and can continue to learn, even at an advanced age.

Adults respect knowledge, but they respect human relationships even more.

Adults are not a “filing cabinet”…and are not interested in purely academic knowledge.

Adults are open to a multi-disciplinary approach to problems. They will often consider a question as “a problem to be solved” specifically.

The day's tempo

There are many studies showing that the levels of productivity and attention change throughout the day. On a “normal” working day (9am to 6pm) the following events are seen:

mornings : are a better time for intellectual work than afternoons

Therefore it is best to do theory-based exercises in the morning and practice exercises in the afternoon

hypoglycaemia periods: 11:30-12:30am and 5.00-6h00pm approx: possible fatigue and irritability. Avoid activities with a conscious lack of skills and favour work in small groups or pairs

The scaling down Cooptic in Belgium

Card's author : Gatien Bataille

Card's type of licence :
Creative Commons BY-SA

Testimonies :

Background

In the framework of a Leonardo da Vinci "skill transfer" project called Coop-Tic (2011-1-FR1-LEO05-24397), the CRIE in Mouscron carried out a scaling down training session in its territory (Wallonia, Belgium) during the months of February and March 2013.

This training session had 5 distance modules and 2 residence meetings and was followed by 14 people from the fields of environmental education and nature management.

Training methodology

making available and encouraging the production of multimedia documents,

interaction between peers,

opening the tool to outside resources and actors.

Adapting the initial training focus

Based on the initial training experience

With the initial training experience we thought it would be interesting to adapt it based on the following:

We did not intend to organise our training around the life stages of a network as in the initial training. The duration of our training course did not allow us to reproduce the life stages of a network seriously (not even in an "accelerated" version).

We only planned one distance module before the first meeting in order to create the group dynamics as early as possible (because the dynamics only really started when participants were face-to-face)

We did not intend to suggest "itinerant cards" for our trainees since the rate of completion at the end of the initial training was very low, despite having a "web" audience that was more inclined to write on the net.

We did not intend to work with a wiki for each trainee and preferred using a common wiki for the group where all resources and production were compiled.

At the initial training, the time lapse between meetings was quite large, meaning there was a considerable loss of participation. We preferred grouping face-to-face modules close in time to minimise this effect.

During the initial training, we were exposed to many ICT tools. This was not accompanied with sufficient time to become familiar with these tools and lead to a lot of frustration among trainees (lack of skills, not enough time or knowledge to test the tool "at home"). Therefore we decided to choose fewer ICT tools and provide more time face-to-face to allow trainees to become familiar with them. Our goal was to get them to use the ICT tools we considered essential in a totally independent way.

We planned some time to think about solutions together that would allow each trainee to talk about this training using simple words in their environment to promote the dissemination of the lessons learnt.

Based on the "Belgian" context

The profile of "Belgian" trainees

The target audience of our training were actors in the fields of environmental education or nature protection.
They can be described as having:

a high level of involvement in environmental problems

a high level of freedom in their actions (non-commercial sector) or, in the opposite sense, working in a very restrictive environment (employees in local or regional administrations)

a certain level of reticence towards ICT tools and the Internet

not much knowledge on ICT tools and the Internet

facilitating a network of people who are not very connected to the Internet.

Mapping the trainees

Our group included:

2 people who worked on a river contract

4 people working in the field of environmental education

2 people working in the field of popular education (specifically regarding organic food)

1 person working in the field of sustainable development

3 people working for a communal nature plan

1 person working in a local action group

1 person working in the field of cryptozoology

Adaptations made

Since our audience was "close to the ground" and had little time (or in any case were little inclined to spending much time in a first stage on training in ICT tools), we adapted our training and made it shorter. This entailed two modules face-to-face with five distance modules.

We chose for a more advanced form of accompanying (re-launching, connected to Skype or reachable on the phone, advanced explanatory screencasts) this was because our trainees were not at all familiar with the web 2.0.

In general terms, we adapted the content of the activities with themes relating to the protection of nature or environmental education. (moving discussion, facilitation exercises for participatory meetings…)

For trainees who worked in environments that were not very "connected" we provided network facilitation tools "outside the web". This also allowed us to keep up a certain interest in the trainees that were not that "ICT friendly" and to answer their concerns regarding "off-line" network facilitation.

We generally spent more time on "common goods" and free licences. We thought it was appropriate to do this since:

it is the core of the "political" project that is underlying to this training

it is an important challenge that has a strong repercussion in the environmental context

it is important to be able to protect one's productions as common goods

While remaining open to the opportunities and suggestions-requests of our trainees, we "modulated" the learning times for a certain number of tools that we considered were basic and for which we wanted the trainees to be fully independent at the end of the training (co-writing and audio and videoconferences).

Content of the "Belgian" training course

At the start of the training/ distance learning between the 8th and 14th February

Module: Getting to know each other.

During the first 3-day face-to-face meeting from the 27th of February to the 1st of March

Day 1: The challenges of cooperation

Module: The 12 sides to cooperation

Module: The power of cooperation

Module: The invisible abundance

Day 2: Tips and tricks for network facilitation

Module: The barriers and facilitating elements to participate in a network

Module: Encouraging participation face-to-face and from a distance

Module: A network lives, grows and is assessed

Day 3: Some tools to get started

Module: Tools are never neutral

Module: What tools and for what purposes?

Distance / week of 4th to 8th March

Module: Individual tracking

Module: Project accelerator

Distance / week of 11th to 15th March

Module: Individual tracking (continuation)

Module: Project accelerator (continuation)

At the last 1-day meeting on 22nd March

Module: A world without common goods?

Module: Competition or cooperation: some tips to act

Module: Free licences and intellectual property

Distance / beginning of April

Time for collective synchronous distance assessment

Personal assessment

Distance / beginning of May

Distance exchange with the trainers / What have you done with what you've learnt?

Feedback to the groups of trainees

Impressions on the training

by the trainees

A survey was circulated at the end of the training that was answered by all trainees. Here are the overall impressions.

To summarise, participants expressed the following satisfactions:
the training had been well thought through: a combination of theory and practice
that trainers were available and created learning dynamics that were clearly appreciated
that the training allows building confidence towards the methods and ICT tools to facilitate a network and to get going right from the start of the training (a leg up for our projects)

To summarise, participants expressed the following frustrations:
not enough time to discover more about the ICT tools and practice with them!
not enough time to go deeper into some more theory aspect that require a big change in posture (so it is not simple and requires some time)

To summarise, participants expressed the following areas for improvement:
Plan more time to learn to use the ICT tools…take it a little further than simply discovering them
Plan more time for face-to-face meetings (even if it is difficult to fit into one's agenda)
To summarise, participants made the following other remarks:
Thank you, it was great!
This must continue

By the trainers

These are the main results of the assessments made by the trainers.

Even if we planned extra time to learn about the web tools we introduced, it seems this time was not sufficient
It seems necessary to have an even tighter framework for distance modules to really accompany "hesitant" trainees
It could be useful to organise "remote control"; that is controlling a trainee's computer remotely when there is a technical problem
Even if we did our best to avoid any technical glitches, some occurred anyway!
We expected this, but the scope of it surprised us: trainees were very keen on the underlying political and philosophical aspects in the training

Below is a graph describing the progress of the training, made with the tool Hy-Sup (Hy-sup is a European research programme on the characterisation of Hybrid tools for Higher Education)

Success factors

We consider the following factors contributed to the success of the training:

A highly available team of trainers

A clearly identified main trainer who was highly available on-site and remotely

Permanent contact between the group thanks to the discussion list with the training team members

A strong technical control over the tools used

Creating favourable conditions for collaboration during face-to-face meetings (during breaks, meals and during the evenings)

Organising the training in a way that allowed trainees to "skipping" some distance modules (this is often a weakness in terms of participation for this type of trainings)

A constant combination of technical work and moments for philosophical reflection

An alternation between times when trainees where "logged-on" and times "outside the web"

Comments for the future

Even if this topic was interesting for many people, it is not that clear how to transform this interest into a real wish to participate in a training course. Why?

because of the broadness of the topic requires several days of face-to-face training and this can be an impediment for many people (;3 days of face-to-face meetings! Impossible, my agenda is overloaded")

because the topic was perceived as one "they already knew and more or less mastered" by many of the participants (why invest money in a training course on this topic?)

because the topic of the training was seen by some as something for "geeks" ("my network does not really use the web… these tools won't really help me")

However, at the end of the training, the trainees

would have liked the training to continue...

consider the face-to-face meeting were a real plus, essential to the group dynamics

mentioned they had learnt and discovered a lot on network facilitation (facilitating a network is not only organising a meeting every so often!)

Opportunities and challenges of ICT for training

Trainers of the Network of Remote French-speaking education of Canada REFAD have pointed out very exhaustively opportunities and challenges linked to the Web 2.0's tools :

Opportunities :

Mobility and portability and hence an increased flexibility for users which have access anywhere and anytime.

An increased motivation of at least part of the trainees, particularly the youngest, leading maybe to more persevering.

The trainee as a producer of learning contents, and thus a more visible apprenticeship leading to an improvement of his taking over of the matter, of his autonomy and of his getting a sense of responsability.

Numerous possibilities of cooperation, of socialization and exchanges and thus of apprenticeship of collaboration and team work so much for the students than for the trainers and institutions.

Theexpression under various forms, including multimédia, allowing a personalization and a suppport to different styles of apprenticeship.

Theease and speed of the information's dissemination at very low cost, independent of distance, increasing its impact.

The multiplicity ou pervasiveness of tools being able to bear all the aspects of an educational experience.

Awide access to contents, to experts and trainings, constituting a factor of levelling out, in particular between regions.

New possibilities of organizing information and of creation of metadata.

An opportunity of apprenticeship of the use of media and ICT tools and of information literacy, transferable to other contexts.

Anopportunity of educational innovation, of widening to new approaches and organizational innovation, among other more personalized and contextualized learnings.

Challenges :

The need for teachers and institutions to share their power and supervision. An evaluation of authority towards transparency, from expert to facilitator, from presentation to participation.

The support to motivation and participation necessary to the evolution of the trainee's role from passive listener to active and creative participant.

A need for apprenticeship of numerous information literacies : use of technologies, informational skills, management of digital identity, etc.

Questions linked to intellectual property and to evolution in contents of producing practices and works (assemblies, cooperations, etc).

The management of immediacy of communications and fast evolution of social softwares.

Risks linked to safety of information on the Web and to cybercrime.

Choice of tools and of their integration to institutional systems or not.

Specific educational practices

The reasons to adopt new technologies are at first educational, in connection with the trainees needs.
So they can have important impacts on the design of the device and on the modalities of supervision. Here are some tips :

Motivation and participation support

Designing trainings needs to plan important fluctuations in interest and participation and to implement measures to arouse and maintain it beyond initial enthusiasm. Tools only are not enough, the purpose or direction given by the pedagogical scenario for their use remains central.

Social media play a motivating role in most educational experiences. They offer an empowerment feeling to trainees and new possibilities of socialization. They advantageously request each trainees perseverance on longer trainings.

Two items related to the motivation of the trainees are often given:

evaluation of participation : it's more a forced choice to participate than a deliberate one. It is also a risk of a minimal participation aiming only at the infringement of the evaluation's criteria. Contrary to the preconceived ideas according to which the pupils will make only the works which will formally be estimated, the absence of stiff constraints (relative to the blog e.g.) incites the pupils to blog even more. The dosage between constraint and freedom is to be found.

wide broadcasting of the contributions : opening gives visibility, pride and allows the reuse. It is thus generally seen as a factor of motivation. This practice is systematically used in Animacoop's trainings. The trainees produce diffusable contents. It is a more binding but also more appreciated work. (e.g.: http://animacoop.net/wakka.php?wiki=ContenusProduits).

Individual, collaborative or cooperative paths

The multiplicity of communication tools and the different needs lead to a diverse range of pathways. Then the good teaching position would be to vary in order to give trainees, whom have different learning styles, the possibilities of a more adapted path.

Collaborative activities, facilitated by Web 2.0 tools, have however a particular interest : they are both "a good learning vector" and a mean "to promote the development of social ties between trainees", they allow to "fight against the risk of isolation and demotivation especially in distance learning". They achieve various goals simultaneously:

accomplishment,

reasoning of higher level,

gain of working time,

transfer of learning,

motivation for achievement,

intrinsic and continuous motivation,

social and cognitive development,

interpersonal attraction,

social support, friendships,

reduction of stereotypes and prejudices,

valuing differences,

psychological health, self-esteem,

social skills,

internalization of values,

quality of the learning environment ... and many others.

However the arrival of digital technologies only reveals some hang-up of collaborative learning: sharing critical information efficiently for a joint project is an additional step that many organizations do not take, on one hand by lack of shared culture, and on the other hand because of the basic needs of individuals. The collaborative work is based, primarily, on voluntary service and can not be an obligation.

A more personalized apprenticeship and environment

The culture and the multiplicity of choices given by the Web 2.0, combined to its opportunities of directing the "I", calls for a greater personalization of paths, as indicated above, but also for methods of expression and tools. It can be a very limited personalization : profile and personal pages, photos, etc, added inside an institutional apprenticeship environment, focused on the course or the term rather than on the trainee. But more often, as said in the former chapter, we talk of a more fundamental questioning in which the trainee builds his own apprenticeship environment, from his own choice of tools, independantly from successive institutions that he will spend time in and where he will constitute the portfolio testifying of his training and experience and of his digital identity.

Active educations and more contextualized apprenticeship

More over tools of the Web 2.0 promote an apprenticeship in action, more authentic or more located. The trainee can for example build up resources reusable by the community. E.g. : articles written by Animacoop trainees are reused by trainers for the production of new courses.

Multimedia contents

Another challenge for educators presented by these tools is the trend towards less textual learning resources. Videos in particular encounters a lightning popularity.

The use of blog : it allows to leave tracks of one's apprenticeships and is excellent in the practices of formative assesment.

Wiki shows the contributions of each member to a collaborative work.

Vidéo and video conference enable to assess the spoken expression or the content's appropriation. We can also build on existing content, e.g. evaluate or complete an article on a wiki.

The use of appropriate tools

Placed in front of an abundancey of tools, the trainer must be able to choose the most relevant for the desired apprenticeship. Often, if his institution hasn't done it for him, he also has to select the software to support them. The discussions between trainers on specialized newsgroups show very well their perplexity in front of the multiplicity of offered tools and the difficulty to choose those which will fit best their educational activity.
Farther we propose you a small selection of tools classified according to their uses.

Support

To exceed the level of simple comment or formatting, to progress to a training of higher level, such as the development of argument, criticism and synthesis, a steady veducational support is essential.

The supervision of interactive progresses as those allowed by Web 2.0 asks thus not only more time, but also a steadier availability. To face this greater need for time and for availability, several solutions are proposed.

the need to establish, from the beginning, slots of availability,

the collaborative work. The supervision was assumed in team of four trainers : "This way of working favors students who receive instant answers as well as trainers who share the task of answering emails".